Happy New Year

I'm working today :(.  Probably going to leave a bit early, though.  We're planning to go to a pot luck with several other families, at least for a little while.  Cocktails, champagne and prime rib.  Should be fun, but I doubt we'll make it to midnight...my son is recovering from a flu bug and my wife has been a little under the weather as well.

Here's today's hand.  Not something I do much.

Villain was a little loose.  Passive preflop, aggressive postflop, was in the middle of berating someone when I joined the table, so I thought he might be a bit tilted.  I've been pretty aggressive in general, but showed down a quality hand.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $51.05
MP: $142.25
CO: $93.00
Hero (BTN): $177.60
SB: $100.00
BB: $101.50

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with Ac Qs
1 fold, MP calls $1, 1 fold, Hero raises to $4.50, 2 folds, MP calls $3.50

Flop: ($10.50) 3h 9h 5d (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $8, MP raises to $16, Hero calls $8

Turn: ($42.50) Tc (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $24.50, MP calls $24.50

River: ($91.50) 4s (2 players)
MP bets $97.25 all in, Hero folds

I guess I thought on the flop that he was pretty polarized, so I tried to float him.

What's the worst hand you'd call with here....

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $173.55
MP: $271.40
CO: $1278.35
BTN: $194.10
SB: $74.60
Hero (BB): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with xx
UTG calls $2, 3 folds, SB calls $1, Hero raises to $8, UTG calls $6, 1 fold

Flop: ($18.00) Jd 9h 7s (2 players)
Hero bets $14, UTG raises to $165.55 all in, Hero...

I don't have any reads to give, but the guy did limp/call preflop first in, so make of that what you will.  In addition to the bottom end of your calling range, what is the minimum hand you'd be pretty happy to have when you call?

Steady Ebb

In an effort to make myself write more, I'm going to try posting my biggest losing hand from each session to see if anyone notices a trend.  I think the only rule is that most of the money has to go in postflop (so no KK vs AA hands where it all gets in preflop).  One of the things I periodically notice with Jared is that when we do hand reviews, he picks up stuff I'm not aware are big problems.  So, even though I don't think that just picking the biggest losers is the best way to review play, it's not a bad place to start if you're looking randomly for blind spots :).

First one is actually not a huge pot, but it was the biggest one of the session...one of those slow bleeding sessions where nothing big happens but you either don't hit, or when you do, you get no action.  Villain is pretty loose and cold calls a lot preflop, but otherwise nothing special.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Pot Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $97.90
Hero (UTG): $219.30
CO: $164.80
BTN: $52.65
SB: $72.55

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is UTG with Kh Kd
Hero raises to $7, CO calls $7, BTN calls $7, 2 folds

Flop: ($24.00) 2s 8d 9s (3 players)
Hero bets $19, CO calls $19, BTN folds

Turn: ($62.00) Td (2 players)
Hero bets $47, CO calls $47

River: ($156.00) Jc (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $91.80 all in, Hero folds

Final Pot: $156.00
CO wins $153.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I think this hand is pretty standard, at least through the flop.  No reason not to value bet on the flop.  On the turn, the ten isn't a great card because some draws got there as well as some of his range making two pair.  I bet, intending to fold to a raise, because he's pretty loose and there are a number of worse hands I think he calls with.  I can't really see anything to do on the river besides check and hope he checks behind.

December Update

Hey guys, sorry I've been so quiet, but really have not had much going on, poker-wise.  Tons of work and busy with the holidays, good stuff, not too exciting, though.  I have been playing short sessions a few days a week...wanted to make Iron Man this month so I could get a small year-end bonus at FT.

Got a new laptop a few weeks ago (wife and I gave each other laptops for Christmas :) ).  So, I've used some time getting it set up.  It's a big sucker, 17-inch, 1900 x 1200, so I can put as many tables as I want and still have room left over.  Strange thing is my POS work laptop running XP seems to be better able to handle 6 tables plus associated software than this new computer running Vista.  In every other respect, the new laptop is better than the old one.  Oh, well.

I'm just about at the end of another failed shot to stick at 1/2.  The pattern this year has been to beat up on .5/1 and get beat up at 1/2, relatively speaking.  My problem is that I play pretty low volume and have an aggressive bankroll strategy, so I am subject to a lot of potentially failed shots.  But over 25k hands at 1/2, now, I've lost over 25 BI.  Half of that was during a time when I was playing and running like shit (went from relatively comfortably rolled at 1/2 dropping almost down to the bottom of my .5/1 BR threshold).

This latest shot, though, I've been playing pretty well, and just not having stuff work out too well.  I have dropped a lot of poker activity (blogs, forums, videos have been pretty scarce).  But I have continued to be diligent reviewing my own play in depth and have been taking advantage of Jared's help reviewing a few hands from each session as well.  So, I'm pretty confident that I'm playing OK, and it's not like I'm in a big downswing or anything.  My BR "strategy" revolves around 5 BI shots, and I've lost 4.9 BI this time...so one more loser and I'm back to .5/1.

Now, this doesn't affect me financially, but it does make me question sometimes whether I should keep at it.  Part of my motivation to play is the prospect of improving and moving up the ranks.  But if I need to put in a lot more effort than I do now, I don't know if I want to absorb it.  I still think I'm already good enough to profit at 1/2.  I'm not saying I'm great, but I try to table select and I see a lot of bad play, so I should be able to have some sort of profit as I continue to work on my game.  But it's definitely possible my assessment is too optimistic.

I certainly still have the passion for poker, but I've got a lot of other things I'd like more time for as well.  We'll see.  I read periodically about people quitting the game in frustration, but for me, it would be regret.  Hopefully, it won't come to that, and either my game will improve or my luck will turn around at 1/2 and beyond.

November Summary

In some ways, November was a non-event for poker.  I am overloaded with work stuff -- thankfully pretty interesting -- and towards the end of the month with the holiday season getting underway.  That resulted fewer hands than normal, and I don't play a lot of hands to start with.  I also made very little time for anything other than session reviews:  two videos, almost zero forum activity, very few blog entries and comments (sorry, guys!), etc.  

Actually, on that last one...if I've ever made a comment on your blog, I have  been keeping up with it (Google Reader FTW), but I'm doing most of my blog reading on an iPhone, which makes it harder to leave comments.  As things slow down, I should have more time to check from my PC instead, so hopefully I'll be able to comment.  But, I am at least reading!

OK, back to the summary.  Even though the number of hands is few, I have got my game back on track.  I had slipped into some semi-bad habits after running like crap for a bit, and I was making a cold stretch significantly worse than it had to be.  One of those bad habits was slacking off with my own hand analysis, including sending a few to Jared each time.  We used one coaching session for a PT/replayer review.  For those of you with coaches, I would really suggest you dedicate a session to review every once in a while.  Had some hands in that review that I would not have thought to single out for comments for one reason or another, but which I was misplaying.  It underscores one of the reasons I think a coach (or mentor, if you've got a good poker network) is so valuable...we all have blind spots.  So now, even though it cuts even more into my playing time, for the most part, I am not starting a new session until I've done at least a cursory review of the prior one.

I'm still off my bankroll high by about the same percentage as my 401(k) plan is off its portfolio high (boo!), but my immediate prospects are good, if I can maintain my review and play discipline.  Hopefully this month I will have some time for a few more videos, as I've got a few tagged I would really like to study.  For now though, I have to turn my attention back away from poker because there are a couple monthly work project updates that need doing.

Back in business

I had to get a new hard drive, which was a mixed blessing.  It was a royal pain in the ass to get everything set up again, even with access to my old files.  There are so many different settings to get in again, and that was even being clever in a lot of cases...I found where a lot of different configuration files were stored.  The good part is that I had accumulated a ton of junk on my hard drive, and try as I might to clean it out, nothing beats starting from scratch.  My computer seems a lot more responsive.  I now have a 120GB drive.  Although that is smaller than most drives that come with new computers, it should give me a decent amount of space to play with...bring on the datamines and the video downloads :).

I spent Friday and the weekend, when I had time, re-installing everything.  I haven't checked Google Reader in a few days, but I just looked and have 1000+ unread posts.  Surely I'll never read most of those, but for you guys whose blogs I keep up with, I will catch up soon.  Not today because I also have a couple work deadlines...but certainly by the end of the week.

Home life has been a bummer...my wife injured her back and has been pretty much out of commission.  Of all the stuff to go wrong with your back, hers was the least bad...some sort of muscle pull/spasm/strain that the killer muscle relaxers the doctor prescribed are helping with.   No herniated discs or other nightmare back issues...this is bad enough!  I'm getting a chance to pile up massive husband points, as well, but no time for much else.

I listened to Leatherass on the 2p2 podcast last week and heard the coolest golf bet in quite a while.  Evidently, when he was a hotshot junior golfer, he bet his club pro he could beat the pro using only one club.  Using a 4-iron, he shot 76 or something like that and beat the pro.  I'm sure that he was a better than scratch golfer at the time to be able to do that, but even so it's pretty amazing, IMO.  Let's say that he was a +2 (extremely good golfer at any level, but got to believe that's among the best in the country for 15 year olds).  That equates to about shooting 70.  So, he goes up 6 strokes only using one club.  I'm a pretty good golfer -- not awesome, but a single digit handicapper -- and if I could only use one club the whole round, I'd be shocked to shoot within 18 shots of my handicap.  I might try it for 9 holes with a 7-iron one day, just to see.

Where the hell did this week go?

Seems like Monday was just yesterday and now the week is just about over and I did nothing.  Actually, worked a ton so far (same projects, lots of issues to resolve, going well), but did have a lesson on the company's time this morning to make up for it a little bit.  And I'm following up with that by writing up this post, too.  Yay, me. 

For the first time in a long while, I did a PT review rather than a sweat or video, and I forgot how helpful those are.  I know that I've been mixing in playing bad with running bad, and as we looked through some individual hands, that was borne out.  If I had to say what the bigger influence is, it would be running bad, but far from 100%.  I wonder how much cause and effect there is between playing bad and running bad. 

Certainly my motivation to grind has dropped off due to this downswing, even though a lot of the DS is my fault in the first place. It's human nature to avoid unpleasant things in favor of pleasant things.  With so many other things going pretty well and poker not so much, I guess it's not surprising that it's dropped off.  Jared was able to extract a few things in general that confirmed some of my own thoughts, but he did pick up one thing that was new for me.  I've been playing my big draws very fast, but not optimally.  Getting in with a massive draw will not likely be a big EV mistake in a vacuum, but it doesn't mean that indiscriminately betting and raising is the most EV way to go about it, either.  Also, I had miscalculated my likely equity in a couple big draw situations...mostly stemming from a poor job on my part assigning hand ranges.

One point that Jared makes over and over -- which I do OK internalizing to various degrees -- is that while "advanced" plays are all well and good, they are not at all necessary at small stakes.  Things like 4-bet bluffs preflop, floating, etc.  He doesn't object to working them into my game because there are spots even at these stakes where they work.  And I certainly don't go way overboard with that sort of stuff.  His point is more that they are higher variance and I should think about the balance between trying to use those plays and just playing "boring, straightforward" poker.

Finally, @ Brian and Willie:  thanks a ton for your comments on my last post.  Brian, I will try to take you up on your offer, although my window for playing my be outside of your window for sweats, due to time zones.  If nothing else, after I get done posting this, I'll look you up on AIM so that you know who's pinging you :).

Willie, I actually have been playing on a different site...Stars.   I've got a smaller roll there, enough for 50NL, so I've been building up my roll and confidence in that game.  My WR @ 50NL is about the same as my lose-rate @ 100NL...so I just need to play twice as many 50NL hands to break even :).  Absolute isn't for me.  It's fine for whoever wants to play there, but I'm so disgusted at what happened there and their reaction that I just don't want to support them.  I will say that if I made my living playing, I might not be so righteous about it...if I thought my edge there was big enough...so I certainly don't fault anyone if they want to play there...just not for me.  As far as different games, I have actually thought about that, and talked about it with a couple folks.  For a number of reasons, I want to stick with 6m NL for now, but I do think that before all that long, I will incorporate some HU NL and/or PLO.  I've thought about trying limit because I was quite successful with it (by my standards) back in the day...but with tougher games now plus having to re-learn parts, let's just say I'd rather leave that legacy of success intact :).

October = Bleah

October was the worst month ever, winrate-wise.  Sample size is really small, though, as life outside poker has gotten busier again.  Just about all good, but busy.  I did log some hands over the last week, trying to get back into the flow.  I've been watching videos, did my own video on Deuces Cracked, listened to some strategy via podcast, and read a fair amount as well.  So, when I played, I didn't really feel too rusty (kept it at 4 tables max).

But the results still blew chunks as far as I'm concerned.  I played 100NL on FT and 50NL on Stars to build up my roll there.  Each 100NL session was a big loss, and the 50NL sessions were mostly wins.  The games didn't play that different, I didn't play that different.  The play at my 100NL tables was worse than the play on my 50NL tables a lot of the time.  In most ways I feel very in control of my game, and the ways that I am not in control I know right away I'm making mistakes, like before villain even does anything.  My playing discipline in a lot of ways is really strong, but let's just say I really need to make myself pause before acting.  I'm doing things I know I should not (and not doing some things I know I should), and it's because even with only a couple tables open, I'm not thinking things through enough.

I continue to at least in some part take a running-bad stretch and augment it with playing-bad.  Not a ton, but still way more than I should.

Something else happened to me over the last week that always scares me...I couldn't find any hands where I was really torn about how to play...outside of the mistakes I knew right away I made, everything else seemed either standard or even that I played it well.  The reason this scares me is that I don't think I'm good enough to play 3,000 hands and not be torn.  Again, I don't think I played perfect, just that I'm looking back on it and not questioning.

So, my plan is to get a session going with Jared this week and have him just watch me play and see if anything jumps out at him.  I'm a bit at sea right now with my game...feeling in control of it and losing at an alarming rate (over 10k hands, now, and more importantly to me, like 2 months long).  It's difficult to maintain confidence because I don't have a long-term track record yet.  Honestly I don't think I ever will have a long term track record...the game conditions and my condition changes more quickly than I can log say 100k hands.  Anyway, I think that I can substitute some of the confidence/game assessment with a coach.  That leads to a different problem:  if my current winrate (lose-rate, really) continues too much longer, I won't really have the bankroll to happily get coaching, at least from Jared.  Oh, woe is me :P.

Hmm, this is coming off pretty whiny to me.  Bottom line, I think, is that I'm suffering a crisis of confidence which is sapping my enthusiasm to play.  And I'm starting to wonder if I'm wired to play poker well.  I mean, I've now been at 100NL for a year.  I've been able to push into 200NL, but those shots have failed.  And now, I'm in sight of having to drop back down below 100NL again.  I'm smart and all that, but if I haven't been able to move past what I consider to be a pretty basic level yet, I'm not sure I'll ever do well in the game.  I'll still play, study, etc., because I still find it interesting.  But with all the coaching, videos, study work, software, datamining, etc., I really think I should be able to crush at these stakes if I were any good.  And not only am I not crushing, I'm barely treading water over 100k+ hands, and have been sinking like a stone over the last 25k or so.

Poker, what's that?

Been taking a little break (kind of) from the tables, and poker stuff in general.  I've been getting too frustrated with the downswing I've been on, so I've just said screw it to playing for a bit.  I will not make Ironman this month, the first time that's happened in a year, at least.  I've played  a bit on Stars for a change of pace.  My role is smaller there, so I've been donking around at the 50NL tables.  I've got very few reads, but the play is really not very good.  In a small sample, I'm up a BI real money, and tons in Sklansky bucks (same story, different site).  Don't know if I've just gotten more used to FT, but I don't like the software nearly as much at Stars.  Some of it has to do with the awesome FullTiltShortcuts program I use on FT, but in general, I'm just more comfortable with the FT software.  However, if I'm going to drop down and get some confidence back, it might as well be on the site where my roll is smaller so I can build it up, and f*ck FT anyway for dealing me so many coolers (stupid, I know).  Still, I'm only probably going to play like 5k hands this month, so it doesn't matter much where I play.

My Deuces Cracked video got released Monday, and the feedback is generally very positive (directed at Joe Tall and Jared).  I agree.  Hopefully, they will continue that series.  I like the more in depth conversations.  Joe keeps the talk flowing, but also provides another point of view.  In general, the videos where they get two coaches going back and forth are good (see Coaching Tree, among others).

Other than that, it's been work work work, except today.  I played golf with my boss and a college buddy whom I hadn't seen since graduation (and for me, that means a lot longer time than it does for you guys).  Awesome to catch up.  He's done awesome for himself, and has had kind of a dream life in a lot of respects, but in spite of that, it was very cool to hang out with him and get caught up :).

Late Night Coaching with Joe Tall

I am the featured student for an upcoming LNC episode on Deuces Cracked.  I tried to find some interesting hands.  I thought at first that the hands were pretty uninteresting, but after going through the recording and seeing what sorts of things came up, I changed my mind.  I did OK with hand selection.  I picked some hands where I thought I did OK but wanted confirmation, and some hands where I knew I screwed up but I thought were still interesting. 

Jared, my coach, does a great job 1:1 with me instructing not only the "what" but the "why."  He did just as well for the video, with both Joe and me firing questions.  Like the rest of the series, we didn't go over a ton of hands, but got some interesting conversation on all of them.  If you like the series, you should like this episode.

I didn't ask a ton of questions (IMO), but I had a lot written down (surprise).  Joe asked the very questions I had on my mind a lot of the time, which I'll take as a good sign for me.  I'm at least thinking about the right sorts of things.  I won't give away the episode, but if you watch, you'll definitely get to see at least one total brain-dead play on my part.  No surprise there :P.  Obviously, anyone watches, I'd be interested to hear if you have any different opinions about the analysis.

Ugh, make it stop

Here's another one of the things that ticks me off about being a small-volume player...few hundred hands here, few hundred hands there, few thousand hands for a month:  downswings can go really long on the calendar.  My last 15k hands I've run way below expectations.  That in and of itself is frustrating just because I hate to lose.  My play has been pretty poor in spots, so I'm making it wore than it needs to be for sure.  But the biggest frustration is that for me, this represents almost 2 months worth of play.  Over the last couple months, it's been a steady stream (seemingly) of getting  all-in as a 3:1 or better favorite, and then they get there...and all the usual stuff that we whine about when running poorly.  Intellectually, I know it's going to happen.  Even emotionally, I'm OK with it.  I'm pretty sure I've gotten a little gunshy and too cautious, but the whackiness isn't majorly affecting my play or even steaming me too much.  I more laugh about it, to be honest, and I'm trying most of the time to not even look at how the hand plays out once the cards flip up, and I make whatever note on my opponent is appropriate.

The problem is that while I've gotten good at making my decisions relatively unaffected by results, I haven't yet conquered getting my enjoyment at all unaffected by results.  I played a really long session (for me -- it was 1200 hands) last night.  4 tables only, no distractions, and did a great job thinking through decisions and putting villains on ranges, and was pretty close, a lot of the time.  But after AKs < AQ, AK < AA, AA < runner-runner straight (he had 2 overs, backdoor flush and backdoor straight on the flop and bluff-shoved in a 3-bet pot, LOL), and assorted other shenanigans, I finished down a third of a stack. 

I reviewed all hands with any sort of money in because I actually had no question during game time.  I thought maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the tables/hands to form questions in such a long session.  Gasp, that does happen sometimes!  But everything seemed standard even when I reviewed.

Discounting for the moment that I'm sure I'm missing my mistakes in review as well as at game time, I should be pretty happy that I got the money in good and that I feel I played really well and didn't make any (obvious) mistakes for this session.  But because I basically broke even, I just found that I didn't enjoy it.  These sorts of sessions have been enjoyable when I'm on a heater or even when I have a mix of good and bad results, but because it's been so long -- on the calendar -- since I've run well, I just feel disappointed.  For guys who play 15k hands in a week, they just have a bad week.  I know they don't enjoy it either, but at least for them, they're bound to play through it pretty quickly and at least get back to breaking even ;).  No guarantees, of course, but I'm still holding onto the conviction that I'm capable of beating the game at these stakes, regardless of the last few months :P.

Back from vacation

Been on a family vacation for about a week.  I peeked at my work email...245 unread...I do get a fair amount of quickly-deleted FYIs and also get copied on a lot of bug progress reports that I don't need to act on, so I hope to get caught back up on the email backlog quickly.  More time-consuming will be a couple big projects that were getting to critical points before I left.  It's that sort of stuff that pushes vacations into the distant past pretty quickly :(.

Nothing poker related until this morning when I tried to catch up on some blogs.  No hands, no videos, no forums, no even thinking about poker, except when we drove past Commerce :).  I hope that will give me a nice refreshed outlook when I finally do fire up the poker client...September was dismal, by far my worst month $$ wise.  My play didn't feel confident, but I think it was the results influencing my feelings more than playing significantly worse.  I was able to review a lot of hands before I left, and the number of known bad plays and questionable plays was pretty consistent with historical rates.

I did look back to the beginning of the year, and my results are pretty depressing, to be honest.  Over the last 100k hands, I'm a paltry .66 BB/100 winner, and a decent loser (like 4 BB/100) at 200NL, and an overall $$ loser over that time (rakeback and bonii make up for that so that I am barely positive).  I know there are a lot of spots I could do better, but still, I think of myself as a better than breakeven player.  Still, I'm ready to play again after some time off, so enjoying a hobby counts for something, I guess.

I'm not sure what I could realistically be doing differently in terms of learning, preparation, etc.  I talked about this for a bit with Jared, and he believes that what I'm doing...getting in the hands when I can and thoroughly reviewing my play as the top priority...then taking in videos and strategy forums as lower priority is the way to go.  I tend to agree, although I am going to drop some review in favor of videos and forums.  In other words, instead of all review and no videos, it will be a decent amount of review and a few videos.

I have a lot of notes

I'm really pretty good about taking notes.  Between theory notes from stuff I read/watch, detailed notes on videos, thoughts on hands that I screwed up, correspondence with people -- mostly coaches -- about hands and sweat sessions, and other assorted crap, I think I've got 30-50 pages of stuff accumulated over the years.  Oh, and I've got this blog.

The problem is I never really go back and review...with any sort of deep thought...most of it.  I watch so few videos compared to what's out there that I'll probably never go back and concentrate on watching the best ones.

I've got to figure out how to best organize everything so that I can easily access it later.  I'd like to keep things in Word because that works well to port to my iPhone, so I can review without even needing a connection (of course I'm also tempted to get through the next Deuces Cracked video on the phone, too).

Anyway, it's probably good to take a bunch of notes and even write in blogs because the act of doing that forces me to think a bit more about things.  I may not go back and refer to something WiltonTilt said in his math series six months ago, but I still remember some of the content because I went to the trouble of writing down and thinking about some key things.

In other news, I had a big conference to attend this week.  I played for about 90 minutes on Tuesday, and that's all I've had time for.  Next week, I'll be in Disneyland with the family (yeah, Disneyland, go ahead and laugh, but it is fun to be there with the kids).  I'll probably be able to get away with watching an iPhone video here and there, but no way is the computer getting opened for any stretch of time, unless the wife and kids are so exhausted that they fall asleep well before I do.

All told, it will be close to 3 weeks between serious playing, and that's probably fine.  I don't think I've been playing well lately, maybe I'm being results oriented.  I've had an absolutely terrible month, though, and I don't really feel confident at the tables with my decisions.  I think I end up playing OK, but a bit tentative...so I miss some value and probably tend to make too many hero calls.  At least that's the trend when I play without real confidence.  Hopefully, the break will end up erasing whatever lingering doubts remain and I'll have fun playing again.

If you believe in freedom, read this...if you don't believe in freedom please ignore

If you're from the U.S., please fill this out.

This is mainly for poker players, but unless you're fundamentally opposed to Americans' ability to play poker online, there's no reason not to fill this out.  Also, the way that poker players were limited in how easy they could play poker online was a pretty underhanded political trick and I believe exemplifies why there is so much cynicism towards politicians and the political process.  I assume anyone reading this already knows all they care to about UIGEA, so I won't go into any more.

I'm amazed how much the party of "less" government in America tries to dictate what I can and cannot do.  I think both parties have some serious issues, though.

Perhaps I'll write a little something on religion for my next post :).

Thanks.

OK, I'm better

Was going to delete my last blog because I'm a little embarrassed by it...but it is what it is, and I was definitely ticked off last night.  My temper gets the better of me in a lot of competitive situations, and it usually hurts me some.  But that wasn't the case too badly last night for most of the session...really it was two hands right at the end that pushed me over the boiling point.  Up until then, even though I knew things weren't going my way overall, I was making the right decisions.  I had a lot of big hands preflop and on the flop, so it's not like I had to play great...they kind of played themselves.  But I did fine.

I'm still probably taking a break for a couple days, but that might have happened anyway.  One of my liabilities as far as poker is that I don't have a ton of time to devote to it.  I like it and wish I had more time, but I'm in no shape to support my family with poker, so playing full time is not an option.  The flip side is that I am fortunate to not have a bad week or month or whatever affect my life outside of poker.  Yeah, I dipped below the bankroll threshold I need to mix in some 1/2 games, but that just means I drop down to .50/1 and kick some ass there, or maybe head back over to Stars where I have a little cash idling and try and grind that roll up a little bit and hopefully get my confidence back.  Financially, I lost more than my entire poker roll in the stock market this week.

For additional perspective, I read a friend's blog who's going through a shitty ordeal with leukemia...he's been in and out of the hospital for almost a year now, away from home for weeks at a time going through various treatments that completely wreck his body.  He had one operation that was similar to a bone marrow transplant where there was a small, but significant, risk he would die.  A month ago, a week after he finally got clearance from the doctors to return to a 100% normal life, his routine tests showed that the leukemia had returned, and now he's back in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy again.  The good news is that the chemo apparently did its thing to the leukemia.  The bad news is that the side effects this time were absolutely horrible.  As I was reading Tom's blog, I imagined if he were reading mine, what he would think of me being so pissed off about a short bad stretch of poker.  Actually, he would probably understand, but still.

Oh, and the tennis last night went well, too.  I had the shot of the night, and did get a couple short lobs I was joking about in my last post.  But I hit away from the net guy like a gentleman.

To you guys who left some words of commiseration and encouragement to my last post, I really appreciate the support.  Thank you!

FUCK YOU FULL TILT

In case you couldn't guess from the title, I'm venting...there is absolutely nothing constructive in this post!

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

432 hands, -$1000+, - 121 BB/100 (mix of .50/1 and 1/2)

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

AA < QQ twice all in preflop, once only one out on the river because one queen would have given me a flush

KK < AA once all in preflop

AK < QQ all in preflop, king hit on the flop, queen on the river

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

Top set < flopped straight vs a 77/0/2.5 guy in a blind battle (he limp/called T7s for the win)

Middle set < top set

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

OK, I'm off to play tennis. Fun session of poker, got me in the mood. Hope neither Dan nor Scott lob short while their partner's at the net.....

I might just be too stupid to ever be a big winner

OK, not really, but maybe kind of.  Regardless, I really feel like an idiot after Friday.  Took a day off work, plus my wife went out with the girls on Friday night, so I had plenty of time for poker, for once.  After a round of golf in the morning, I headed over to a card room for some live play.  I really like playing live every once in a while, although I think that if I were a live pro, I would grow to hate it.  I am not a big multitabler online, but even for me, the pace of play is maddeningly slow.  Everyone but me and one other guy was a regular.  However, a B&M regular is not the same thing as an online regular...still very loose and pretty passive, especially preflop.  However, the rake structure really encourages passive play...as soon as a raise goes in preflop, the entire drop of $5 in a 2-2-3 blind structure gets taken.  So, there is virtually no late position open raising.  Anyway....

I ran totally cold.  I only picked up strong hands a couple times, and those were a cooler and a lost flip...one set under set, and another 2 pair < OESD that got there.  As I was getting ready to leave, I picked up MP in the BB vs a guy who had to have trips on a paired flop.  I'm OOP, and like a total idiot, I'm value-betting myself out of 30bb or so on a  KK9 suited flop.  For fuck sake, he's never folding better, only rarely calling worse (for more than one bet), will almost definitely let me show down cheap once I put in a small flop bet unless he has me crushed.  Of course, he shows up with K3o, which he limped in 2nd to act 9 handed.  This is typical and exactly why you want to play live, but I am a total total donkey.  After that hand, I played until it got back to me in the BB and left...I was so tilted at myself for making that play, that I figured it would take me too long to calm down and play with confidence.

I stopped by Chipotle for a steak burrito, a nice mood enhancer :).  Then I headed back to the golf club (using their wireless network) to check in quickly with work and maybe play a little session before heading home.

Right now, I'm just above my bankroll threshold for playing 1/2, so what I do is select the best tables I can find across .50/1 and 1/2, rather than sticking with one limit.  I used to not like doing that (mixing limits in a session), but I don't mind it so much now.  So, I'm not sure how many BB I won, but I had a nice session where I focused on playing solid and just about recouped the loss from my live play.  It was one of those sessions where there were no coolers or suckouts either way, and the results were good.  Not to sound too much like Phil Hellmuth, but it was nice that when everything is kind of standard (low variance, I guess), I came out ahead.

After the kids went to sleep, I played another session.  I don't know why...my Friday night record sucks big time.  This time, though, it was a lot my fault.  Once again -- and I've written about this before, but am having a really hard time breaking my bad habits -- I tried pushing a guy off a marginal hand.  My hand reading is getting a lot better...I knew pretty much what he had.  My people reading remains stubbornly shitty...I thought I could make him fold it.  His hand was actually worse than I thought; he was willing to stack off with a middle pocket pair for 175 BB.  Give him credit, though, because I was willing to bluff him off it.  The thing is, he's the wrong guy to bluff...36/24/something aggressive postflop.  This guy is going to gamble.  I called in position on the flop with a gutshot+back door flush draw precisely because my implied odds were so good if I could just hit, and we were deep.  But you can't have it both ways! If you're playing to stack the donkey when you hit your hand, you can't also play to bluff the donkey off his hand when you miss!  Ugh!

Trying Too Hard

I'm getting frustrated trying to crack 200NL.  I think I'm trying too hard to outplay people, especially regulars.  Pretty common theme for my last few sessions is me trying too hard to put people on marginal hands and bluff them out of pots.  I do think even at small stakes if you can hand read, it's fine to attack a likely weak or polarized range.  You can pretty easily force people to give up aggression in the hand.  However, they give up by calling down, not by getting out of the hand.  That means it's possible to get a little extra value by playing your decent made hands more aggressively (people will look you up with marginal made hands).  But you can't have it both ways, and I think that while I'm getting a lot better at hand reading, I'm still making the wrong conclusions about what people will do with their hands.  Where I would be folding (or trying to fold) to pressure with say an underpair to a turn raise, I keep forgetting that not everyone will.

And to be fair, I'm not giving them a reason.  My image gets shot by making some sort of play and then I either end up bet/folding a couple times or else I show down the bluff/semi-bluff, etc.  If I could capitalize on that and change gears well -- and get the cards to go along with that -- it wouldn't be so bad to get caught.  Instead, I keep up the same style, and of course the idiots keep looking me up or playing back.

I would be seriously complaining about Full Tilt coolering me, as well...where even if my hand holds up, the board gets so scary that I cannot get a bet called...not to mention all the good 2nd best hands I've been getting...you know how that goes.  But, like a ray of sunshine through a gloomy sky, Full Tilt actually let me hit a draw after full stacks went in!!! OMFG, world may be ending.  Lately, the only time I'm winning flips is against the shorties; the full stack all-ins are not going my way.

I snuck out for a round of golf yesterday...actually was supposed to go with my boss and one other guy from work.  Boss hurt his back, but said that wasn't our fault, so have a fun round.  Sweet.  Played OK tee to green, but putted lights out.  The only reasonably close putt I missed was on the first hole (about 6 feet for birdie), and I dropped 4 long ones, including on the 17th and 18th holes to seal the victory against my buddy who came out to join us.  There was a girls high school golf team waiting to do their team picture on the 18th green, and they were all standing just off the back of the green as we played out.  They were just in high school, but seriously there was not a single bad looking girl on the team, and a few of them were really cute, especially all made up for their photos.  Not what you expect from a bunch of athletes, but the LPGA and even tennis (the two women's pro sports I watch) has been getting better and better looking over the years.  I digress.

My buddy and I were even on the back going into the hole.  I give him a stroke on the hole, and we were both on the green in 3.  I'm about 20 feet out and he's about half that.  He gives me a hard time in front of the gallery.  But I curl the putt in, do a mock Tiger fist pump, and get a loud ovation from the girls.  So that was nice.

Wild weekend

Poker's a sick game. 

Friday night I had my biggest winning session.  That was in spite of a pretty dubious stack-off a little deep, although based on game flow, it might have been OK.  I had a read that he would play a marginal overpair or AK as the nuts -- he was on tilt, and I was right...but I didn't have near the nuts either and he was just a little ahead of me.  I think we both played the hand spewtastically.  Or he just soul-read the shit out of me and pwned my ass.

Saturday night, I had my biggest losing session, $25 bigger than Friday's win.  So, basically, the weekend was for rakeback :P.  Saturday featured me getting stacked 5 times and losing 90 bb on another hand, while winning more than a half stack (barely) only once over the session.  One of the times I got stacked was absolutely retarded on my part, hitting TP on the river against a total maniac, but I did a terrible job with the hand, and lost way more than I needed.  Then there were the standard losses of getting all the money in once with 95% equity and once with 85% equity, and two middle set < top set hands.

The lessons from all this?  Without some bad play on my part, I'd be up a couple BI over the weekend.  From a results standpoint, that's probably the key thing...because of that and some other hands where I don't think I was good enough getting value, I could have had an overall successful weekend.

I'm also not winning big on a lot of my big hands.  Not when I get sucked out on or coolered, but when I'm ahead, a lot of the times people fold.  However, I think there is the danger of being too results oriented.  Because coolers go both ways, and I am getting sufficient action with a lot of equity; just in the short term it's not working out.  I'm making the +EV play and generating action.

The other thing I noticed looking through some medium hands is that I'm taking similar lines with bluffs as with made hands, and I'm apparently running into either better hands, better bluffs, or in some cases the hands I'm representing, which pretty annoying.  But the good thing is that I'm bluffing well in execution, if not necessarily timing.

Poker's a sick game.

Big leak remembered

I was having a hand discussion with Jared that made a light bulb go on for about the 50 zillionth time probably.  I forget all the specifics, but he raised preflop with 99 and got called by a regular in later position.  Villain is super aggro postflop, like 5+, I think.  Effective stacks were 100bb or maybe a tiny bit deeper.  I don't remember the board 100%, but I think it was T86 rainbow.  He c-bet some reasonable amount, and villain minraised.  Jared asked me what I would do, and what my plan was for the hand.  It's a pretty sick spot, and I don't like any choice, really.  I went into the IM tank and finally decided although I didn't like any option, there was too much chance he's ahead, so I said I would call the minraise, check/call most turns, and re-evaluate on the river.  Probably folding if he 3-barrels big though. 

He asked for villain's range and we talked about that for a while, talked about hypothetical turns, and what if we had AA or a set, etc., etc.  Then we came back to the actual hand and my plan for it.  He gave me credit for some reasonable thinking about the hand and they hypotheticals, and for realizing that all options pretty much suck.  And he did say that, especially with a little history, flat calling the flop  and check/calling the turn is not totally unreasonable, but it's likely going to lead to a lot of tough river decisions, especially against an aggressive player.  So, what he advocated for me was to just fold to the flop minraise.  It might be a small mistake, but it avoids a potentially large mistake.  It's important to note that villain had not yet abused his position; essentially there was no real history.

Basically, out of position + out of a clearly good option should  tend to = out of the hand.  At least for me.

Of course, we're going to play OOP sometimes.  But when we are, we need to make sure that we've either got superior hands or superior skill relative to our opponents.  Obviously, it's always good to have better hands and more skill than our opponents.  My point is that when we're not sure where we stand, we could still justify not folding in position, but if we're not sure where we stand out of position, it's much harder to justify staying in the hand.

Interestingly, I was listening to Tommy Angelo and KRANTZ yesterday, and they both talked about position quite a bit.  Anyone who's read anything by Tommy Angelo knows how important he feels it is to play in position more often than your opponents.  KRANTZ had an interesting take on it as well...he said that if you look at forum strategy posts, the overwhelming number of call vs. fold questions come up when Hero is OOP.  And parenthetically, in that spot, people like to call too much, in general.

Missed just about everything in August

As far as poker goes in August, in all ways except two, it was a bust.  I hardly played, I watched one video the whole month, barely kept up on blogs, read zero forum posts....you get the idea.  I had to choose between a lot of priorities, and this month, poker took a back seat.  For the first time in quite a while, I have something where a lot of things are coming together at work:  interesting, challenging, executive pet project --> get what I need.  Also, the kids started school last week, so for a lot of August we were cramming in the last summer vacation activities we'd promised the kids.

So, what were the couple things that went well?  I believe that they are closely related.  I didn't force my play for the most part, and my results were quite good.  In other months, I'd stubbornly log hours even when I was too tired, distracted, unfocused, etc.  And I'd play too long as well, believing that my game is good enough to at least break even and hopefully learn something.  The problem is, if you're too tired to play well, you're also too tired to learn much from playing, except how to get frustrated maybe!  So, this month, when this big project came up, I committed to myself not to play if I couldn't play well, and the results certainly were better.  Of course, I also probably ran better.  I certainly seemed to cooler guys, and I did run into some really bad stackoffs (bad for them, good for me).

This month, things on the work front will calm down a bit, but not all the way.  I also have one big golf tournament to play and soccer season starts Saturday.  At the end of the month, we're taking a vacation, where the only internet access I'm likely to have is through my phone.  So, it will likely be another low-volume month again.  And life will be full of good/cool/fun stuff, so that part will kick ass.  Hopefully, I'll maintain my discipline to only play when I can play pretty close to my best.  The hardest part is that I miss playing, especially when things are going well.

I was going to post some graphs and stats, but I've got to go.  Later guys.

It's performance appraisal time

Those of you with corporate jobs have probably gone through formal performance evaluations.  Some years I like them, some years I hate them, mostly in between.  Since I manage folks, this is an extra busy time for me because I have to write and conduct theirs.  We have a pretty large form, I think it ends up being 10 pages of content for each person, split between their comments and mine.  To make it worse, we use a web app to get everything done, and the interface is pretty horrible, so it takes a lot of time.  I keep thinking that the next year I do reviews, it won't take me that long.  I've been doing them for a number of years, and so I should be able to pretty well blast through them.

Then I start doing them, and I find that it takes me just as long to write them every year.  I feel like I really owe it to the people I'm reviewing to invest the energy to write a good review.  For some of them, it's a wasted effort as they don't give a shit about it or the process.  For some others, I can see that they truly appreciate the time I've taken.  But for everyone, even if I think ahead of time I'll just plow through, when the rubber meets the road, I feel too guilty if I don't give it my all.

So, for the last week or so, I've been burning the midnight oil trying to get things written away from the office, where I just have too many distractions.  Then I'm pounding a couple extra cups of coffee in the morning so I have some energy to actually walk through the review with them.  Fun times.  Well, I've got two more to go this week and one more to do in the next couple weeks, then I'm done for the year, and I can get back to other stuff with my spare time, like playing some poker.

But I was wondering how applicable the performance appraisal concept is to poker.  Most of us do a fair amount of self evaluation, which is a critical piece.  But none of us have a boss who can give us the perspective from an evaluator standpoint.  Coaches can come close, I suppose, but I don't think it's as consistent or as thorough.  I wonder if the coaching sites like Deuces Cracked or Leggo Poker have thought about implementing a consistent review process/form for their coaches to use with their students.  I think it would be pretty cool.

Rough Session

Had a lot of big hands that did not go my way (and a couple that did).  I think I played fine, but you be the judge on these big ones (they're not all necessarily losers...the key is they have postflop action.

==================================================

Villain is a regular with TAG stats, on the tight side.  I've been pretty active on the table, but with cards, so I haven't shown down anything out of line yet.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $261.20
Hero (CO): $203.00
BTN: $193.00
SB: $200.00
BB: $148.70
UTG: $268.55

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with 9 T
1 fold, MP raises to $6, Hero calls $6, 1 fold, SB calls $5, BB calls $4

Flop: ($24.00) 6 8 T (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP bets $20, Hero calls $20, SB folds, BB folds

Turn: ($64.00) T (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $50, MP raises to $235.20 all in, Hero calls $127 all in

River: ($418.00) Q

Not a hand I'll always play, but the circumstances were good here.  BTN is tight, BB is loose, most of the time I'll have a pretty easy hand to play postflop.  That said, I don't think this hand ended up being easy.  Can't fold on the flop, but not sure a raise gets called by worse, and can't stand to be reraised, which would make me give up TP+gutshot.  I didn't think through his range well enough at the table, though, and played the turn pretty poor.  He's got to have something, or I don't think he makes the flop c-bet.  He's aggressive, but there are 3 other people in the pot and the board is drawy.  When he checks the turn, I think that I'm probably ahead, but the more relevant question is whether I'm ahead when he check/calls (maybe), and whether I'm ahead to his c/r (almost never).  I think now that the bet was fine, but I need to fold to the CRAI, which is such a strong move.  Or, I could get lucky and have him play AA as the nuts!

=========================================

Villain here was total LAG smack tallker, big plays, big loser in my database, although I didn't have any specific notes on him before the session.  He showed a double barrel turn/river bluff after I folded the river, and it was on a scare turn.  He plays over 50% of his hands and will get in light.  Same table as the hand above, and it happened soon after.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $471.20
Hero (BB): $203.00
UTG: $200.00
MP: $213.00
CO: $146.20
BTN: $258.75

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with J J
1 fold, MP raises to $6, 1 fold, BTN calls $6, SB calls $5, Hero raises to $30, 1 fold, BTN calls $24, 1 fold

Flop: ($72.00) T 4 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $50, BTN raises to $228.75 all in, Hero calls $123 all in

Turn: ($418.00) 6

River: ($418.00) 2

With the read above, I'm fine with the hand.  I showed that I will play a marginal hand, if he was paying attention.  Against a sane player, I would fold to the raise.

============================================

A different LAG...this ones somewhat reasonable stats wise, but have no notes on him.  He's 27/15, but his 3-bet preflop is 11%!  Over a couple thousand hands.  Postflop he is also very aggressive.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $155.00
SB: $221.45
BB: $200.15
Hero (CO): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with J J
Hero raises to $7, 2 folds, BB requests TIME, BB raises to $24, Hero calls $17

Flop: ($49.00) 7 2 T (2 players)
BB requests TIME, BB bets $36, Hero calls $36

Turn: ($121.00) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $92, Hero raises to $140 all in, BB calls $48

River: ($401.00) 4

My biggest question was whether to shove preflop or wait for a non A/K board.  I planned to get it in somehow if an ace or king didn't show up.  Mission accomplished :).

Goals and sabotage

Here's the bulk of a comment I posted to an entry on Malfaire's blog.  I don't know how many other people deal with the same stuff, but we tend to be at least somewhat ambitious, so maybe it's fairly common.  Anyway, I'm not sure if my comment is any good or helpful, but it's long, so I thought I would re-post it here as general food for thought.  It's not poker-related, although it could apply.

Yeah, I've got the same issue. I don't know if I'd call this exactly a problem, you need to figure out yourself how much you really want to change that aspect of your personality.

I've got quite a few years on all the poker-blogging guys I read, so I guess I speak from experience somewhat, and I'll sometimes wonder where I'd be at now if I'd stuck with one of my own Big Goals. My life is filled with guys I used to be equal with at something (sports, girls, business, even poker) who have gone on to greater "success" but I'm not sure they're more successful or happy across the board. Better/happier in some ways, worse/with regrets in others.

The thing is, the Big Goals don't get met for free; they take a fuckload of work and sacrifice. The guys who can meet those goals and still be happy are the ones who only care about that goal...nothing else matters to them. Otherwise, they either meet the Big Goal and feel some sort of negative towards what they gave up...or else they get distracted from their Big Goals. IMO. So, until you decide that you're willing to sacrifice whatever in order to meet whatever your Big Goal is, don't beat yourself up too much about it.

All that crap said, I totally know what you mean about self sabotage...and I've done that to myself way too many times even with regular old Goals...they don't have to be Big ones. Actually just knowing I'm prone to it has helped a lot, so you are doing something right by questioning it. I think the best thing I've come up with to stop self sabotaging is to find someone to share whatever my goal is, how I think I can reach it, and hold myself accountable to checking in with them in terms of how it's going. I hate to admit defeat in something that I'm actually trying to do (a pretty big part of why I self sabotage...I just stop trying, so I won't fail). So, that's what's worked for me. Another thing I've tried is just to put stuff in writing. Something about that takes away the excuse to self sabotage, I guess. I used to do that with monthly poker goals, actually.

Wow...kind of hippie stuff.  Better head on over to Noel's blog, now :).

Catching up with some larger hands

I finally got a chance to play just a little bit, and will post the big hands that had some postflop action.  You guys can thank me for not putting in 2 times I lost set under set and once set under turned flush....but in spite of feeling really rusty, things went OK.  It really is funny how a week or so off messes up your rhythm, though.

Villain is an unknown, just a few hands with him, nothing stood out.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $109.00
CO: $27.10
BTN: $87.55
SB: $38.55
BB: $100.00

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with A K
Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BTN calls $3.50, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($11.50) 6 3 A (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $9, BTN raises to $38.50, SB folds, Hero raises to $105.50 all in, BTN calls $45.55 all in

Turn: ($179.60) 5

River: ($179.60) 9

When he raises, my range for him is a club draw (possibly pair plus flush draw or a gutshot + plus flush draw), 33, 66, Ax, and a bluff (whether air or turning a pocket pair into a bluff).  I decided to go with my hand, but I think now I could find a fold, or if I didn't want to fold, call and shove a non-club turn and check/fold a club turn.
===========================================================================

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $146.25
Hero (BB): $100.00
UTG: $79.00
MP: $208.00
CO: $87.05
BTN: $72.15

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with A T
2 folds, CO raises to $3, 2 folds, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6.50) 4 7 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5, Hero raises to $16, CO calls $11

Turn: ($38.50) K (2 players)
Hero bets $25, CO raises to $50, Hero raises to $81 all in, CO calls $18.05 all in

River: ($174.60) T

I think that preflop and flop are fine.  The flop probably missed him, and obviously I have a lot of pot equity if he calls.  The turn was a bad play.  I think that I was trying to rep a stab on the flop turning into a hit on the turn, but there's nothing that's calling the flop and folding to my bet  on the turn, and in fact AK is a somewhat likely hand for him at worst.  I could maybe fold out a pair between 77 and KK, but I'm not so sure about that, as really the King is not very likely to have hit me.  After I make the initial bet, though, I'm committed.  The turn pretty much sucked here.

=========================================================================

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $100.00
BB: $102.35
UTG: $139.00
Hero (CO): $104.40
BTN: $51.50

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with K K
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 2 folds, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50) K 8 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

Turn: ($17.50) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $10, BB raises to $20, Hero calls $10

River: ($57.50) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $25, Hero calls $25

I think I played this one OK.  His min-raise spells trouble for me on the turn, but I've got odds to call.  Getting 3:1 on the river, I think the call is OK, too.  Does anyone push their set?  Does anyone fold?

Catching up

Haven't played any since last time, but can catch up at least on some reviews and as promised some big hands. 

I think that I'm going to exclude hands that got all in preflop (I guess unless there's something interesting).  I had 3 that were when we both had big pairs, and I imagine that pair vs pair or pair vs AK, etc. is both boring and going to balance out over time.  Also, when I flop a set or better, play it fast, and get it in I'll also exclude...win or lose, because what's the point in that?  If I flop huge and play slow, I'll probably post those, though, just to make sure I don't get too fancy.

Villain is 32/18/2.6, and I've got a note he can be pretty spazzy, for what that's worth.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $104.10
UTG: $95.00
Hero (MP): $101.50
CO: $115.35
BTN: $98.50
SB: $44.05

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with J A
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50) 8 5 7 (2 players)
BB bets $5, Hero raises to $18, BB calls $13

Turn: ($43.50) T (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($43.50) A (2 players)
BB bets $45, Hero calls $45

Preflop and flop seem pretty standard.  Against a more straightforward, tighter player, I would follow up on the turn, but I think here that I have pretty little FE once he calls the flop, and in fact there's a small chance he could have gotten there or made a pair on the turn, since he's pretty loose.  The river is close, but without a better read than I have and his high aggression, I am OK with a call.  I'm certainly beat a lot, but I'm also getting 2:1 odds.  His missed draws will bet even with the Ace.  Since the Ace has to hit me a decent amount of the time, and he bets so large, I think a fold would be OK, too.  Given the strength of his bet, I think a fold is marginally better, but like I said, it's close.

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Villain is 53/20/2.4, no other notes.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $164.10
CO: $93.50
Hero (BTN): $100.00
SB: $115.85
BB: $100.00
UTG: $61.05

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with K A
UTG raises to $6, 2 folds, Hero calls $6, 2 folds

Flop: ($13.50) K 5 4 (2 players)
UTG bets $5, Hero calls $5

Turn: ($23.50) 9 (2 players)
UTG bets $50.05 all in, Hero calls $50.05

River: ($123.60) 9

Preflop is usually a 3-bet, but I'll flat AK once in a while.  However, usually, that's against someone I think could be decent (based on stats or a note), so they don't just put me on a pair when I flat them.  And especially against this guy, I won't mind playing for 60bb (or even 100bb) if I 3-bet and he comes over the top.  So, preflop is probably a mistake in this situation.  Once I play weak preflop and hit the flop, I'm going to play for stacks .  My plan was to raise the turn (or bet if he checked).  Flop is so dry that I don't mind waiting for the turn.  His huge overbet means I'm either way ahead or way behind, but I can't play it the way I did, hit TPTK against a LAG, then fold, so I'm OK with it.